People are asking me to tell them more about the movie, Expelled. I can’t! I was thrown out!

Let me clarify a few things. This was a private screening with no admission charge, and you had to reserve seats ahead of time; you also had to sign a promise that you wouldn’t record the movie while you were there, and they were checking ID. Everyone in my family reserved seats under our own names, myself included. There was no attempt to “sneak in”, although apparently the producer, Mark Mathis, accused me of doing so in the Q&A afterwards (Mathis, of course, is a contemptible liar). We followed the procedures they set up, every step of the way, and were completely above board in all our dealings.

Mark Mathis was there at the screening, and apparently spotted me and gave instructions to the guard to throw me out. I asked the guard why I was being evicted, and he explained directly that the producer had given him that instruction.

They were well within their rights to exclude anyone. When I was told I would not be allowed in and threatened with arrest, I told the security guard that I would not cause any trouble. I stopped to talk with my family when they came over with a theater manager to evict me; again, I left peacefully. Apparently, the guards were talking about carrying out further measures when they saw me standing outside the theater, and speculated that I was going to harass other attendees. This was not true; I’d just had to leave my friends and family behind, and all I really wanted to do was tell them where I’d be. The last thing I wanted to do was spend two hours hanging around a movie theater.

This account is a complete fabrication. I was not disturbing anyone, was not trying to make a scene, and was only standing quietly in line. When I was taken aside by the guard, it was a complete surprise.

I was the only person evicted. The people I was with, which included my wife, my daughter Skatje, her boyfriend Collin, Richard Dawkins, and the entire staff of the Richard Dawkins Foundation, were overlooked. I was the lucky one.

Afterwards, we went out to eat and have a beer or two, which is why I didn’t give you all a more complete summary right away. We laughed over the movie, which I hear is not only boring and poorly made, but is ludicrous in its dishonesty. Apparently, a standard tactic is to do lots of fast cuts between biologists like me or Dawkins or Eugenie Scott and shots of Nazi atrocities. It’s all very ham-handed. The audience apparently ate it up, though. Figures. Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty.

There are plans afoot for rebuttals. It’s hard to come up with much motivation to do so after discovering how bad this movie is, but yeah, both NCSE and the RDF will be doing something. Dawkins is going to mention it at least briefly in his talk tomorrow. He may write up a review, too, although I don’t think he considers it a high priority (did I mention what a piece of dreck this movie is?).

The RDF crew are a fine bunch of people and we had a good time after the crappy movie. Which I have not seen. Apparently, I’ve been given a fair amount of time in the movie, too.

This outcome so far has been absolutely perfect, as far as I’m concerned. The hypocrisy of the Expelled makers has been exposed by their expulsion of one of the people they filmed (final lovely irony: I’m also thanked for my contributions in the credits), they’ve revealed their incompetence by throwing me out when Richard Dawkins was right next to me, and I didn’t have to waste two hours on a bad movie.

I’ve also got a story to tell: when the creationists saw me and Dawkins in a lineup, I am the one that had them so frightened that they had to call for the guards. I feel mighty.

How much did you have to pay for this kind of publicity? I’ve been reading about this event seemingly everywhere for the past several hours. I’ve always enjoyed your sneaky, clever sense of humor, but Dawkins – who knew?

I’d suspect that PZ was the producers’ best (if not the only) investment in publicity for the film, were it not for the fact that that would extend the presumption of design, and intelligence, to such a clown car full of fuckwits.

However much you insist that you’re merely a mild-mannered midwestern professor, you admit to having a fox for a wife and a firebrand for a daughter. Most of us would burst with pride to claim any third of such attainments.

If the film is actually that comical, it might attain cult status among cephalopodophiles.

Man, how dumb are they? How hard is it to screen the guest list, if they are that worried about specific people? Damn but they are dumb. Guess we knew that already though, huh? I guess they really were appreciative of your contribution, since they spared you the pain of watching their tripe.

Who’s more irritating to them, the Brit who tours and writes books or the active blogger who is CONSTANTLY pointing a finger at them, their movie and how stupid they are. The one who sends the squid fetishists to their sites, of course.

Dawkins is certainly more renowned in the world at large, but Myers is a royal pain directly in their ass who is probably better at helping them mobilize the troops.

Soon we’ll be reading about PZ instead of Britney!

By the way, the uniformed cop being a dick is perfectly legal. The theater is private property, so Myers has no right to enter without permission. Keeping him off the sidewalk in front of the theater, however…

It is dishonest of you to claim that PZ wasn’t invited to the screening. He was as much invited to the screening as every other person in line who had registered and been approved by your online system.

An accurate description is that while waiting in line, he was disinvited by Mathis and ordered by an off-duty police officer to leave the area or face arrest.

From the many descriptions I’ve read, that Mathis was so afraid of PZ being there that the officer and the theater hardly gave him enough time to say “see you later” to his family and friends.

Ironic that the movie showed cross shots of the Nazis in action. Reminds me of Goebbels’ modus operandi, always tell a whopper of a lie and be repetitious in its dissemination. The gullible then and now lap it up when predisposed to a particular ‘ideology’–in this case religion.

I rather suspect that far too many theists take vicarious utility in this form of ID propaganda, arguably many who accept evolution but don’t have the intestinal fortitude to condemn their co-religionists for this sort of chicanery.

“Nomad” said the screening he saw had the music from Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” I have a hard time believing they’ve already obtained synch rights for the music. Synch rights for well known pieces are very, very expensive and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear they’ve been screening the the movie with pirated music in it–hoping they’ll be able to secure rights before the final release.

1)Mathis is shown to have lied about the movies purpose to the interviewees, through evidence of domain name purchase and dates of interviews.

2)All claims to your ticketless movie crashing are unfounded as that claim contradicts the actual email invite, which clearly states that a ticket is not needed, and no specific invitation is needed.

3)You, inspite actually being in the movie, are recognized and removed, while Richard Dawkins, who was also in the movie, revels in his apparent anonymity and is let in.

4)The only report of your misconduct comes from a student who wasn’t near you and is ignorant of all the facts that I just listed.

5)This all takes place at a screening of a movie that attempts to portray its agenda as open minded and in search of fair play and debate.

As a side note, did Dawkins sign up under his own name? Or did he come as a guest? If he had signed up, then that would also argue against anyone being “surprised” at his presence.

(Please feel free to add all the other points I’ve missed. I’m sure there are plenty.)

So, I’m actually at a loss as to what else they can get wrong. I believe they have nothing left to screw up. They’ve been so thorough in their mess making, leaving glaring evidence against every claim they make.

Not to mention I scored comment number 666 on the other thread (temporarily, at least, pending other comment approval ) and got to listen to a creationist troll calling student conduct policies “ideological tests.”

Providence truly smiled on you this evening (in the rhetorical sense of course).

One would have a very hard time scripting a better and more illustrative turn of events. Though photos or even video would have been wonderful… the lack practicality of such outside a movie screening (even an honest one) is of course obvious.

Thanks much for the whole affair, PZ! I only wish I’d been there to enjoy it all in person.

It fun seeing the Creo liars come out and spout transparent whoppers about the incident in the face of self-created bad publicity that they cannot abide. There will be more lies told, but only their own camp of fanatics will even pretend to believe them. Liars, and fools, that’s all they have.

Was the policeman acting legitimately, at least initially? If jerry Bruckheimer turned up at a movie theater and said he didn’t want me to see “Aliens Invade Miami” or whatever, would his status as producer allow him to do that, and to enlist a policeman in doing it? I appreciate that it’s basically a private party, but even then I’d expect a member of staff would have to ask you to leave first.

@Martin: Unfortunately, yes. I personally know two guys who cannot believe evolution happened and think the earth is around 6000 to 10000 years old. Both are great guys, nice and friendly.
It may have to do that over here in Germany, their extreme view on Christianity and the bible is very far from mainstream and so they both are rather covert in their beliefs.

Not surprising that they weren’t looking for Dawkins. They are creationists, after all, and while they could probably imagine P.Z. getting there from his Minnesota address on time for the screening on a fast horse, they could hardly believe that Dawkins would make it all the way from England by a perilous 3-week ocean voyage followed by a stagecoach ride through hostile Indian country.

What a great idea from MissPrism (#34). Whenever they show this piece of crap in our towns, we should all go disguised as Richard or PZ, and see if they’ve updated their fear list. I mean, if they’re going to be true to their motto “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed”, they really ought to exclude all intelligent people, not just American intelligence. Come on, you IDiots, we wouldn’t want to think that you’re prejudiced againist foreigners as well as against intellects.

Other things aside it seems a bit impolite to expell someone who contributed to the movie and even gets credit at a pre-screening.

I mean, normally you organise a pre-screener and invite everyone who contributed in some way, even if they’re the “bad guy” in your movie or documentary, don’t you? (I’m not in the movie business, but that seems appropriate to me…)

I love Kevin Miller’s post about this. He’s a real master of reverse psychology. “You’re just helping me out! You’re the best PR team I could hope for! You have walked into my cleverly laid trap, for I am the GRAND PUPPET MASTER!”

I want to repeat something I’ve said elsewhere, about having the cop throw him out. When I went to a screening they have a police officer there as well, in full uniform. But he was described as being off duty by the person telling us what was going on. I don’t know how the rules work, but it appears that they can make some extra money on the side, mercenary style, while still using their uniform AND police car (at least in my case).

I still think it’s a confused case. If they were renting the single screen at the theater then they had every right to exclude PZ if they wished. But having him kicked out of the entire theater surprises me and seems more questionable. From the comments on the other post it appears conclusive that private businesses can kick anyone out for any reason so long as it’s not for one of several protected categories. I don’t care for that, but the law’s the law and there appears to be some potentially good applications of that ability.

The thing that puzzles me is why the operators of the theater WOULD kick him out. The Expelled people presumably (I’m assuming it worked like when I went to see it) rented out one screen, for one showing. They and their rented cop (I’m also awfully unhappy that they can still arrest people when they’re being privately paid to work for a specific person) would appear to have authority over that particular screen and who goes into it. But either they exceeded their authority by removing him from the entire theater, or else the operators of the theater agreed to kick him out. I don’t see option two working, I just don’t think “theater at Mall of America kicks out college professor as a result of pressure from religious extremists” would make a good headline. I mean besides the fact that it’s a crap headline, it’d take up three lines.

Clearly I favor taking a more militant line than PZ (and the others that have argued for restraint). However I am also clearly more of a talker than a doer. I went to see the movie and didn’t speak one word of protest in the Q&A session afterward. Partially because I know the risks of making the fundies MORE opposed to science. I’m too much of an elitist snob, it was better that I stay mum then further incite them.

Oh, and regarding the usage of the Pink Floyd song. I must stress again that it was not the Pink Floyd performance of it, it was a version played solely by string instruments. I gather that different rules apply to re-recordings like that. For instance the video game “Rock Band” made headlines when an artist who made one of the songs used in it protested that the game wasn’t using THEIR version, it was using a remake made by other people. Apparently it’s cheaper to do so. In this case I have no way to know if they paid for it or not. But unless the whole plans to release it publicly were a fraud and their intention has been to release it privately, ultimately ending up in church basements nationwide, I assume they MUST have gotten the rights. I know we have a history with people like Dembski using the work of others without even attribution, but I just don’t think they’d do that with such a high profile (comparatively) movie. They can’t get good buzz off of having the pants sued off of them by music industry lawyers.

I really don’t know how you have the patience for dealing with these morons on such a regular basis. And then you wonder why people outside your country think everyone inside your country is an idiot (I also can’t believe that there’s even the slightest chance your country would vote for another republican in November, but it still seems like neck and neck? After the last 8 years? Sheesh).

On behalf of the 800+ posts so far, I’ll buy you a beer tonight at the Local. I think you’ve rabbled up the base more than the AA conference will all weekend. Nice work. I’d recommend a local brew like Summit EPA.

Call me a cynic but I’m wondering if they thought that PZ would show up if they had a screening at the MoA, and he did. They didn’t think that Richard Dawkins would, so no one was already looking for him. These anti-fascists sure are fascists, aren’t they?

As well you should! I visited digg before your blog today (shame on me) and saw ‘Expelled from Expelled’ in the top stories along the sidebar. I just *knew* you’d done something awesome – I didn’t think it’d be them handing me the laugh of the day.

Seriously, nice work avoiding the movie AND still getting the word out (hella comments on that last thread!)

You should feel mighty, PZ, good for you! This is quite the compliment, really. I just cannot believe that 1) they thought it a good strategy and attest to their honesty to throw out one of the stars of the movie, and 2) that Richard freaking Dawkins is IN their movie too, and they didn’t recognize him? Wow. Wow.

I suggested something similar to MissPrism on the other thread. We need to have a holiday, called “Sabot Day” where we all dress up as Dawkins to go see this movie at the local art-house theatre, and leave a token, sacrificial friend dressed up as a squid outside where they play with their Mac.

We’ll put it on the same calender as Talk like a Pirate Day, Act like a T-Rex day, Pi Day etc.

It could grow as popular as those singing Sound of Music gatherings. Only funner.

I think he should be the “Darwin’s Great Dane.”. Even if he was being peaceful, they saw him as a threat. Great danes are physically impressive and they never cause trouble, but someone that doesn’t know much will go “EEP! LOOK! A BIG DOG! IT MEANS THAT ONE IS GONNA BITE US! Let’s keep it out!”.

…Of course, Rottweilers and Bulldogs are very very very nice dogs too. really cuddlier than they look. The most dangerous Rottweiler I seen was a danger to me because he was squishing me with love! I guess we could also call PZ the Pittbull. Yet another misunderstood and discrimined dog race.

Interestingly, I haven’t heard a word about the screening of Expelled in Harvard Square on March 13. My BS tolerance level is way too low to sit through it, so no review from me. With the large number of Pharyngulites in the Boston area, I was surprised it hasn’t registered in the blogosphere. I’m guessing that the attendance…left a lot to be desired.

I’d love to see someone sue the producers for the unlawful use of their music in the film. Musicians have long been aware that it doesn’t matter if their work is for sale or not when it uses uncleared samples (look up John Oswald, for example); and playing the songs to a theater would certainly be considered a “public performance”… If the right people heard about this, Mathis could get his nuts handed to him in court– or at least get some unwanted legal attention showing that he’s a lame-o thief.

Dawkins is in town to speak at the American Atheists convention this weekend. AA announced their lineup of speakers at least a month ago, maybe more, so it wouldn’t have been difficult for the producers of “Expelled” to find out which prominent atheists might be in the Minneapolis area at the time of this screening.

guthrie at #72, I’d think the relevance lies in the folks policing attendance at the screening apparently not noticing that Dawkins was a member of PZ’s party. One would reasonably expect them to consider Dawkins to be at least as much of a threat as PZ.

As far as the police officer goes….do what he says even if its wrong. You resist, he has you. The sidewalk is a public right of way and he has no legal leg to stand on for your removal,however, refer to my first sentence. In these cases you go back after the fact, not warrented here, but do not resist his orders. I work in Public Works and I see this type of issue, or similar ones, daily.

Ok, let me get this straight. The link you, PZ, provide – “this account is a complete fabrication” above – being a link to your post concerning the happenings of your denial of entry to the screening, is a complete fabrication?

Now, I’m sure you meant to link elsewhere, but PZ – it’s just to funny as is.

Ok, let me get this straight. The link you, PZ, provide – “this account is a complete fabrication” above – being a link to your post concerning the happenings of your denial of entry to the screening, is a complete fabrication?

Now, I’m sure you meant to link elsewhere, but PZ – it’s just to funny as is.

Salt, everyone here realizes you’re totally, mind-bogglingly stupid, but if you’d bothered to actually follow the link, you’d see it goes to a POST in the thread quoting the false account.

I’ve not read a single thing you’ve vomited here that had any semblance of intelligence (designed or not). You can’t even follow a simple link to see if what you are about to defecate on this blog is correct or not.

You’d be as funny as this whole expelled fiasco is if you weren’t so freakishly sad.

Oh, I did note that phanomreader, but “this account is a complete fabrication.”, reading it as written and following the link which the statement seemingly refers to, has a certain, shall we say, unintended implication?

I’ll bet Richard D was miffed that he wasn’t targeted…kind of weird that you’re actually in the movie but you aren’t allowed to see it. What did they do? Shop in some horns and pointy teeth or something?

Way to get street cred with the self-styled ‘christians’. If their buddy ever does come back, I’d say there are grounds for a lawsuit that could be positively biblical in scope.

Oh, I did note that phanomreader, but “this account is a complete fabrication.”, reading it as written and following the link which the statement seemingly refers to, has a certain, shall we say, unintended implication?

Except that if you follow the link, the link that’s actually there rather than the one in your delusional fantasy, it takes you to the comment that includes the complete fabrication. IF it took you to the top of the post, THAT would have an “unintended implication.” But that’s not what happens.

It’s all surreal in its hilarity. The christians complain that they aren’t allowed equal footing in science, then rule their own playground like a tyrant. It never takes them long to go from persecuted to persecutor, even when the original persecution was imagined.

I wish I could find a way to see the movie without throwing some money their way. I can’t find my copy of “Refer Madness.”

Uh, no. Salt, the link was directly to a comment. There’s no implication at all. But honestly guys, we shouldn’t try arguing with this man who takes his name from a generic term for ionic compounds (Not that I think he’ll even know what I’m talking about). Why? For this moment, I’ll follow the adage “Never try to argue with an idiot – He’ll only drag you down to his level and beat you with experience”

Man, what I would have paid to see the whole saga go down…and, that’s not very Christian like at all. But, I guess after you’ve been sent to PZ Myers “dungeon” and been called every name in the book by his groupies at PZ’s blog, Pharyngula, it’s a bit difficult not to enjoy a good giggle over the whole episode. Yes, I kept a running tab of the names I was called because it was so horrifically over the top. Bear in mind that all that name calling was piled on me in *one* day.

But honestly guys, we shouldn’t try arguing with this man who takes his name from a generic term for ionic compounds (Not that I think he’ll even know what I’m talking about).
Posted by: Matt | March 21, 2008 11:03 AM

Such a limited mind you have. Had I wished to attend to such ionic compound NaCL would have been more appropriate, seeing as my given name is Peter. But, being the blue water sailor that I am, I’ll give you three guesses as to why I call myself Salt?

For a bunch of science fetishists, you guys are proving to be some of the sloppiest around. English usage aside, accuracy is not your strong suit. But I guess that is to be expected, given your predilection for the inaccuracies of your champions , a/k/a Dawkins, Hitchens, and especially Harris.

This is hilarious. But I have a really sick sense of humor. I really want to see some kind of lawsuit on this — I don’t care who sues whom, really — but if, and only if, famed pro-ID lawyer Casey Luskin appears for the other side.

Yes, in fact I do like the thought of shooting mammalian precursors in a barrel.

Oh and by the way, just so I’m the first one to bring this up – scientists are far more concerned with precision than accuracy. Precise measurements can be adjusted to obtain accuracy, accurate (but imprecise) results are useless.

Pharyngula) Ridiculous: Biology professor expelled from screening of “Expelled.” Ridiculouser: He is threatened with arrest, though his family and guest are allowed in. Ridiculousest: His guest is Richard Freakin’ Dawkins

They have changed the RSVP form to prevent guest “gate crashers.” When I checked the RSVP form a few days ago, there was the option to indicate how many guests you were bringing, but not their names. Now, the form does not provide a way to indicate you’re bringing guests. Instead, each person has to register individually.

Sounds like they’re making sure no more ringers like Dawkins can “sneak in.”

Dawkins “snuck in” undetected? My God, they must be the most pathetic intelligences on earth. With all respect to you, PZ, obviously they missed the much better-known (and with more media access) name than yourself. I think they must just like you, that they noticed you and not Dawkins.

Well, I’m sorry you can’t give us a first-hand review, PZ, but at least it’s a great story.

Don’t forget to mention in the future that they’ve complained that you criticized them (their blog, but they’re too stupid and dishonest to care about that detail) without seeing the movie. You tried when you had a chance, the assholes just wouldn’t let you in to see it.

Silly question. Stein is a member of the “Bottom Feeding, Do Anything for Money, Church of Ben Stein.”

Nothing wrong with hustling. We all have to eat and pay bills. But some of us have standards and draw lines about what we will actually do for our daily bread.

Stein hasn’t found the bottom yet, IMO.

IS there a bottom for this guy? I mean, with all the dishonest equating of scientists to Nazis in this movie, he’s not all that far from being a Jewish Holocaust Denier. Does it get any lower than that?

If the expulsion from Expelled *jazz hands* hadn’t already blown up every irony meter in twelve parsecs, Salt’s post #129 would finish the job.

What kind of idiot comes in here whining about a link without bothering to realize it goes to a comment, maintains the idiocy even after being corrected, then accuses OTHER PEOPLE of being sloppy and pedantic?

I feel sorry for people who have to live or work around Salt. Every time they point something out to him, they have to patiently explain to him not to stare at their finger, but to move his eyes in the direction the finger is pointing.

I hear Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas use pipe” had him crouched in a corner, rocking back and forth and murmuring to himself for days. Poor dope.

What’s really funny, aside from the fact that they missed Dawkins and went for PZ, is that these twits have absolutely no PR sense at all.

Pretend you’re Julia Roberts (it’s easy, do it all the time, avoid looking-glasses). You’ve starred in a film (I infer that PZ is a star of this opus). You arrive at a local private screening and get the bum’s rush.

It’s too fucking funny.

They should give me a call.

I would have told them that the way to handle it was to advertise who would be attending, cover the story, as it were. Get a couple of interviews with pix. Play up PZ’s starring role in the movie. Roll out the red carpet. Make it look as though the film is generating interest among people who are actually capable of reason and Bob’s your monkey’s very distantly related uncle! More of the duped will turn out and shell out!

They are even dopier than I suspected, which takes some serious effort.

Now if only you could come up with a similar excuse for the rest of your inane posts…

BTW, I just assumed you called your self “Salt” because of delusions of grandeur, under the false impression that your oh-so-clever posts were like rubbing salt into the imaginary wounds of the rational minded.

I think this is a pretty funny idea from a commenter on Orac’s blog (Oh look a link directly to a comment…)

Right, we need to borrow an idea from the “Anonymous” folks: make PZ Myers masks, and show up en masse to screenings of Excreted (by which title I think I shall be referring to this flick from now on. Seems juvenile, but….damn. These people have already lowered the debate well below the domain of adult dialog).

“But honestly guys, we shouldn’t try arguing with this man who takes his name from a generic term for ionic compounds (Not that I think he’ll even know what I’m talking about).
Posted by: Matt | March 21, 2008 11:03 AM

Such a limited mind you have. Had I wished to attend to such ionic compound NaCL would have been more appropriate, seeing as my given name is Peter.”

If you are going to throw around chemical terms to prove how clever and erudite you are, you should at least make sure they are correct. It takes the sting out of your barb if it’s wrong – even if it’s a typo. That’s a typo you should have caught right away.

Right, we need to borrow an idea from the “Anonymous” folks: make PZ Myers masks, and show up en masse to screenings…

Heh.

I also sorta like the idea of just making sure a ‘PZ Myers’ gets registered for all screenings…

Yep. He is everywhere! Fear him! Look, there he is behind that pillar! My god, he might be… blogging this! Get ‘im…

Besides, it’s such a sweet notion–picturing them blowing a fortune on rent-a-cops to hassle their audiences, purely from over-the-top paranoia, thereby ensuring their film loses even more money than it would have otherwise…

I registered for the local East Bay showing (site unannounced) more than three weeks ago, and received my automated reply on February 28 saying I would be emailed “a confirmation once the screening is confirmed”.

They now know the screening will be in Danville. The web page says the Danville screening is “full”, yet others I know received confirmations weeks ago, while my inbox remains empty.

I fear I have been *pre*Expelled!

Does anyone who is confirmed for Danville want to take me as a guest? I assure you, I am very well behaved. I am a mild-mannered, gray-haired lady who like PZ is “Minnesota nice.”

But I *would* like to know why Mark Mathis told both of us a month after Premise Media secured the domain name “www.expelledthemovie.com” that the name of the movie was “Crossroads.” Was Premise lying to Mark or was Mark lying to us?

Was the policeman acting legitimately, at least initially? If jerry Bruckheimer turned up at a movie theater and said he didn’t want me to see “Aliens Invade Miami” or whatever, would his status as producer allow him to do that, and to enlist a policeman in doing it? I appreciate that it’s basically a private party, but even then I’d expect a member of staff would have to ask you to leave first.

I have no legal background, but as someone who has rented out a theatre for screenings, I think the cop overstepped his authority. The producer has every right to keep PZ out of the screening, and so direct the cop to do. However, to keep someone out of the theatre entirely would be at the discretion of the theatre owner, not the producer of the film. And to then forbid PZ from standing on the public right-of-way, the sidewalk, outside the theatre was way out of bounds. To threaten PZ with arrest for not abiding by the latter two is ridiculous.

What the producer should have done first off, is let PZ in the movie. But assuming that sort of common courtesy is beyond them, the producer would have looked far less worse if he had come over to PZ himself and told him that he was not welcome, rather than hiding behind his hired thug. I’m sure PZ would have complied with his request, and would have probably left the theatre of his own accord anyway (there not being much to do in a movie theatre lobby).

If Mark Mathis had talked to PZ himself, then he couldn’t be faulted for not owning up to his disgraceful and hypocritical behaviour, whatever else we might think of him (and do).

They now know the screening will be in Danville. The web page says the Danville screening is “full”, yet others I know received confirmations weeks ago, while my inbox remains empty.

…and by full they probably mean they are desperate for more sign ups. Perhaps that’s why they only expelled PZ since the theater would have been too empty if they’d expelled his whole party, er, not that I believe the Expelled roadshow are actually cable of being even that clued in.

But, I think we’d all like to know why they registered “Expelledthemovie” but never registered “Crossroadsthemovie,” unless by “working title” Mathis means “deliberately engineered deception” designed to hide his true intent from his interviewees. Domain registration is so cheap (I pay $9 a year) that there is no excuse for not registering a name you are considering using, especially if you are **telling people that’s the name of the movie** publicly meaning that someone else could register the name if you don’t register it first–a fact that puts the nail into the dubious claim that “Crossroads” was a legitimate working title.

Judging by some of the comments rolling in from the creationists this is indeed seen as a triumphant kind of “payback” for creationism being “expelled” from science classes. The mood is gleeful — “we’re expelling them now, see how they like it!”

They don’t see the irony — or, rather, they see the irony in a completely different way. They are not interested in the content underlying what happened, just what went on on the surface. Seeing the ‘unexpected contradiction’ of someone being prevented from seeing a movie which purports to be about openly hearing all sides requires an ability to examine and consider the implications of ideas. Seeing the ‘unexpected contradiction’ of someone who kicked out other people now getting kicked out himself only needs the ability to look at superficial appearances.

I think I’m in a geographical Expelled-vacuum. According to Mapquest, it’s 9hr22min if I go east, 10hr30min to the west, and 13hr1min to the south. Can anyone else in the 48 contiguous states claim to be farther from a screening?

No way, they kept Eugenie Scott out altogether? This really is too much. I see a PSA-like commercial in the making. Shots of each person involved, each saying “I was in the movie, but they won’t let me in to see it.” “They interviewed me, but now they won’t return my calls.” “I was in the movie, and tried to see it, but they threatened to arrest me if I walked into the theater.” Then Don LaFontaine doing a voice-over “If it’s so terrible that the stars can’t see it, why should anyone else bother? Wait for the free version on the internet.”

OK, there were a couple of good ones as to why dipshit Peter is AKA Salt, but erectile dysfunction is the clear winner. Thanks wolfhound! (It’s even funnier that saltpeter as an anaphrodisiac was a myth, much like the rest of the dolt’s make-believe world.)

If enough people call these tools names, they’ll be horrified, leave and not come back? Can we try?

“But I *would* like to know why Mark Mathis told both of us a month after Premise Media secured the domain name “www.expelledthemovie.com” that the name of the movie was “Crossroads.” Was Premise lying to Mark or was Mark lying to us?

Geni”

Not only that, although they registered “expelledthemovie” before many, if not all, of the interviews they never registered “crossroadsthemovie.”Given that it costs so little to register a domain (I pay $9 a year) there is no excuse not to register a name you may use, especially if you are publicly telling people that is the name of the movie and some domain squatter could register it if you don’t register it first. One can only conclude that they never intended to name the movie “Crossroads” and deliberately withheld the true name of the movie from interviewees.

It really shouldn’t matter, but, I hear a lot of creationist thrown around, and did not realize that Ben Stien was Jewish Baptist fundamentalist.

Could somebody confirm this? Is Ben Stien a member of the “Jews for Jesus baptist church.”

Or are members of the PT-TO-NCSE syndicate simply lying for Darwin again?

Mr. “Wallace”, I know from reading you in the other thread that you’re as thick as two planks and and one sixteenth as deep, but even you must realize that there can be and are Jewish creationists, like Gerald Schroeder (unless he’s magically vanished into thin air recently? I only ask for clarification.). It’s particularly common in the most ultra-Orthodox sects.

I’d just like to say here that we’d better be very careful that we don’t give Expelled unwarranted publicity.

Even the fact that Dawkins “crashed Expelled” is likely to give it some publicity, of course. But even though we’re enjoying all of this, and the hypocrisy of expelling PZ from a movie he plays a prominent role in, we’d best not do too much to make this movie sound important or interesting.

In fact, the best message for PZ, Dawkins, and others to put out is that it’s not just awful and wrong, but very boring (even Josh McDowell said that it’s “not entertainment).

Right now it looks like we’re in danger of making it sound interesting.

“But I *would* like to know why Mark Mathis told both of us a month after Premise Media secured the domain name “www.expelledthemovie.com” that the name of the movie was “Crossroads.” Was Premise lying to Mark or was Mark lying to us?

Geni”

Not only that, although they registered “expelledthemovie” before many, if not all, of the interviews they never registered “crossroadsthemovie.”Given that it costs so little to register a domain (I pay $9 a year) there is no excuse not to register a name you may use, especially if you are publicly telling people that is the name of the movie and some domain squatter could register it if you don’t register it first. One can only conclude that they never intended to name the movie “Crossroads” and deliberately withheld the true name of the movie from interviewees.

So did I get this right? They scheduled the preview when the Atheist convention was in town? Absolutely brilliant. I gotta say PZ this just gets better and better. And they wonder why we mock them. LOL

You state that “Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty.” I suggest that you may be seeing sampling bias – the loud and charismatic often do get people’s attention, and the correlation between loud and rational is weak at best.

I know quite a few Christians with physics and mathematic degrees, who find the scientific method and deductive reasoning a useful tool to explain the thus-far unexplained. Who figure that historical accounts need to be treated with some degree of suspicion because of observer bias and data loss. They have no real difficulty with the goals of scientific inquiry, though I might argue details about the current federal and academic funding process.

I cannot think of even one that would spend the time to wait in line to see Expelled. ID has enough flaws that even a single semester of college biology pretty much makes it a non starter. Many even minimally trained biologists I know do not feel the need to see yet more ID information, and their activist leanings have tended towards other topics. I am more concerned about lousy teaching of mathematics and logic at the start of post-operative logic.

Given that Keirsey rationals make up some 5% of the population, I have to assume that we make up roughly the same fraction of most subsets, and that this is why you see a relatively small number of Christians pushing back on tripe like Expelled. We have been fighting uphill for a long time, and one does get tired.

I just wanted to say we’re not all hate-filled nut-jobs who condemn all the unbelievers.
No, really, I am a Christian, but I am on your team. Really.

Well I, for once, say thanks and welcome. We need Christians on the pro-science team. From the Texas Freedom Network to the Clergy Letter Project, they are invaluable allies against fundamentalists who would trample the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment and ruin science. I recommend that you check out the Panda’s Thumb blog, too.

PZ, I saw the video linked at #184. And you’re entirely wrong. My wife is a knitter, and it’s way more than “something fun that people get together and do on the weekend, and really doesn’t affect their life . . .”

You state that “Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty.” I suggest that you may be seeing sampling bias – the loud and charismatic often do get people’s attention, and the correlation between loud and rational is weak at best.

More likely it’s a negative correlation.

I think you are absolutely right. The problem is, Christians *do* have this growing reputation, whether they deserve it or not. Loonies and liars have been allowed to speak publically for them for so long that sensible people are left with little reason to view the religion in a favorable light. All the more reason for Christians to oppose propoganda like Expelled.

Will there be a free screening in the UK to which we can all go dressed up as Dawkins so as to be inconspicuous?

So, Huxley was often called “Darwin’s Bulldog”
Dawkins is often called “Darwin’s Rottweiler”
I hearby bequeath you “Darwin’s Velociraptor”

Why not Humboldt squid or colossal squid?

In atheist lore, the day before Good Friday will always be known as Great Thursday!
The day the IDiots were hoist on their own hypocrisy!
Wooooooo!

That’s NaCl. I have no idea what NaCL is.

Nothing. For (presumably) some reason, there’s a La, a Li, and a Lu, but no L.

Matt, please don’t explain the difference, heads would burst.

Then let me try it. <mwahah> “Accurate” is a fancy way for saying “correct”; “precise” means “with little standard deviation”. If a series of measurements is precise but inaccurate it means the point cloud is very small but does not include the true value – which means there’s a small stochastic but a large systematic error.

Because you poison fertile soil into barren desert?

Gives a whole new meaning to the (probably intended) “Salt of the Earth”.

Apparently wearing a trench coat, as Dawkins did, is the perfect disguise for any occasion!

ROTFL!

Yep. He is everywhere! Fear him! Look, there he is behind that pillar! My god, he might be… blogging this! Get ‘im…

Besides, it’s such a sweet notion–picturing them blowing a fortune on rent-a-cops to hassle their audiences, purely from over-the-top paranoia, thereby ensuring their film loses even more money than it would have otherwise…

<insert evil laughter scene from Austin Powers>

I hope Dawkins wasn’t too “strident” when having a beer after the show, you know how he can get.

Will there be a free screening in the UK to which we can all go dressed up as Dawkins so as to be inconspicuous?

So, Huxley was often called “Darwin’s Bulldog”
Dawkins is often called “Darwin’s Rottweiler”
I hearby bequeath you “Darwin’s Velociraptor”

Why not Humboldt squid or colossal squid?

In atheist lore, the day before Good Friday will always be known as Great Thursday!
The day the IDiots were hoist on their own hypocrisy!
Wooooooo!

That’s NaCl. I have no idea what NaCL is.

Nothing. For (presumably) some reason, there’s a La, a Li, and a Lu, but no L.

Matt, please don’t explain the difference, heads would burst.

Then let me try it. <mwahah> “Accurate” is a fancy way for saying “correct”; “precise” means “with little standard deviation”. If a series of measurements is precise but inaccurate it means the point cloud is very small but does not include the true value – which means there’s a small stochastic but a large systematic error.

Because you poison fertile soil into barren desert?

Gives a whole new meaning to the (probably intended) “Salt of the Earth”.

Apparently wearing a trench coat, as Dawkins did, is the perfect disguise for any occasion!

ROTFL!

Yep. He is everywhere! Fear him! Look, there he is behind that pillar! My god, he might be… blogging this! Get ‘im…

Besides, it’s such a sweet notion–picturing them blowing a fortune on rent-a-cops to hassle their audiences, purely from over-the-top paranoia, thereby ensuring their film loses even more money than it would have otherwise…

<insert evil laughter scene from Austin Powers>

I hope Dawkins wasn’t too “strident” when having a beer after the show, you know how he can get.

I feel as a Christian I (or someone) owe you some kind of apology, for all of this,

Mojo, I appreciate your words, and your sentiment.

I’d like to point out that the loud scatter-brained fundamentalists are actually just as much a minority as the religious “nones”.

The difference is they are loud where we (traditionally) have not been loud. The bigger difference is they enjoy tacit support from religious moderates.

Please, don’t apologize to us – instead speak out (if you’re not already doing so) against the willfully ignorant fundamental portion of religion. Merely “tsk-tsking” them isn’t enough – you’ll need to speak out loud enough to be heard over their upraised voices.

The revolution starts here:
I hereby declare that the word Christian is to be reclaimed by sensible people like me who are capable of analysing objective evidence; are not taken in by rampant propaganda; are not so afraid of something I still can’t quite identify that they have to hide in patent falsehood; and actually quite like science, evolutionary theory and homosexuals (well, nice homosexuals at least); and also, for a number of personal, valid if possibly illogical reasons hold to what some consider to be outlandish metaphysical beliefs about a supreme being and its incarnate avatar.
I’m fed up of cringing every time I read the word Christian. I am one (and also a grad student in paleontology in one of the world’s best universities) and I’m sane.
I propose that the kind of people that are increasingly being referred to by the term Christian henceforth be referred to by the term deluded lunatics. How’s that?

I’m fed up of cringing every time I read the word Christian. I am one (and also a grad student in paleontology in one of the world’s best universities) and I’m sane.
I propose that the kind of people that are increasingly being referred to by the term Christian henceforth be referred to by the term deluded lunatics. How’s that?

Honestly, making a big budget movie of two ideas so very loosely connected, such as natural selection and Hitler, would be the same as making a big budget movie connecting the ideas of religion and child molesting. Fondled- No Innocence Allowed!

It would be such an easy movie to make. But it would be wrong. I like where this discussion is going with the quiet majority speaking out against the crazyernacocanuts who made this movie for money and money alone.

I’m supposed to be plastering & painting and I just can’t stop putting my tools down and going to the computer to see what breath-taking inanity the IDiots are up to now. The links to various eye-witness accounts and other opinions are so entertaining I just can’t stop until I follow them all and read all the comments.

Oh, great! My plaster is drying out now!

I wonder how that student that claims to have been in line behind you will face his peers back at school after being shown to be such a brazen liar-for-jesus.

Also, I have to think there must have been some people in the theatre audience who began to suspect the integrity of Matthis & Co after Dr Dawkins and Kristine revealed their skullduggery in the Q&A.

Well, so much for all my painting & plastering plans for today. This is just too good.

Scott #183 You state that “Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty.” I suggest that you may be seeing sampling bias – the loud and charismatic often do get people’s attention, and the correlation between loud and rational is weak at best.

No, it’s not a problem of individual perception, but a structural problem within the religious communities. In general, Christians (etc), assume the honesty and sincerity of those who claim to follow their creed, making themselves ripe marks for con-men. This is true in general for religious sects – jihadi con-men have ripped off innumerable mosques, real estate cons do the circuit of churches robbing them one by one through investment schemes, etc. Therefore their leadership does tend to be dominated by liars and thieves.

You don’t get that same effect to the same degree in other kinds of organizations – con-men have a tougher time in scientific communities, for example, because no one assumes that those who profess to being scientists are honest and sincere – their credibility lies in the history of their publication and in their collaborators, not in their adherence to a creed.

The problem you have isn’t in our sampling bias, but in the reality of creedal based religious communities. The problem is in the very nature of your ideologies.

I liked the entry someone here made on the “irony” page at Wikipedia. Had to expand upon it:

Breaking the irony meter
When an event entails several layers of irony at once, some say it “breaks the irony meter.” Events surrounding release of the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed provide an example. The movie asserts that Big Science is actively suppressing honest criticism of the theory of evolution. Supporters of the Intelligent Design movement are being “expelled” from academic positions simply because of their opposition to the status quo.

*Although the premise of the movie concerns academic dishonesty, prominent scientists Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers, and Eugenie Scott have stated that the producers did not honestly represent the nature of the film when they were interviewed for it.

*The producers took measures to insure that critics of the ID movement would not be admitted to pre-release screenings, ostensibly to prevent criticism of the project appearing in the press.

*At one screening, the producers noted PZ Myers entering the theater and had him “expelled” by security. They also thanked Dr. Myers in the closing credits of the movie for his appearance in the film.

*While removing Dr. Myers from the theater, the producers failed to recognize and remove the more famous ID critic standing beside him: Richard Dawkins, who was allowed in to view the film. The film’s subtitle is, “No Intelligence Allowed.”

I’m fed up of cringing every time I read the word Christian. I am one (and also a grad student in paleontology in one of the world’s best universities) and I’m sane.
I propose that the kind of people that are increasingly being referred to by the term Christian henceforth be referred to by the term deluded lunatics. How’s that?

I invite you to become a scientific consultant for the Clergy Letter Project. We have a roster of scientists from grad students to full professors publicly supporting Christian clergy who support evolution. There is no set time commitment, it’s just a matter of willing to be “on call” for questions. Just drop Prof. Michael Zimmerman an email. Best of luck in your studies!

Who is Darwin’s chihuahua? It needs to be someone really yappy and annoying, who just doesn’t let go. But maybe that would be more like Darwin’s terrier.

Some dogs just shouldn’t be associated with Darwin at all. The world doesn’t need a “Darwin’s poodle.” And we definitely don’t need “Darwin’s cockapoo” or “Darwin’s labradoodle.” That would just be ridiculous.

No, it’s not a problem of individual perception, but a structural problem within the religious communities. In general, Christians (etc), assume the honesty and sincerity of those who claim to follow their creed

I think this is a vital point. Christians are usually exposed to these issues in a manner that is sympathetic to the fundies. Therefore even Christians who are not creationists themselves are often exposed to creationism as “some people who aren’t hurting anyone, just believe very devoutly, are being hounded by evil scientists for their beliefs.” They don’t see the lies and hypocrisy, the damage to the sciences and society, which we see practically every day.

Along a similar vein, I think it’s difficult for most Christians to justify speaking out against the fundies. Most Christians take at least large portions of the Bible literally (the birth, life, and crucifixion of Jesus, the resurrection, the miracles). So how can a mainstream Christian criticize a fundie for simply taking a bit more of the Bible literally? Especially when “faith above all” is so revered? I hesitate to admit this (it’s embarrassing), but as a religious child, I remember actually being IMPRESSED by Young-Earth Creationists because I knew that a) one was expected to have faith, and more faith meant one was a better Christian, and b) YECers had so much faith that they believed something despite mounds of evidence everywhere to the contrary. Actually, the mental anguish inherent in realizing that the crazier a fundie was, the better he or she fit the biblical requirements for a good Christian, was one of my first pushes down the road to atheism.

I think that’s the crux of the problem. No offense to the Christians who have taken the time to post here, but I’ve just seen more Christians post in places like this, saying “we’re not all like that,” than I’ve seen speaking out in religious forums, saying “you fundies are crazy…and dishonest.” Maybe I’m just not looking in the right places. But if other Christians are anything like I used to be, then they cannot honestly criticize the fundamentalist viewpoint (as I could not) without recognizing how the fundamentalist viewpoint is valued in the Christian religion–for its faith. I’m not sure how they’ll reconcile that, but I’d love to see it happen.

The producers took measures to insure that critics of the ID movement would not be admitted to pre-release screenings, ostensibly to prevent criticism of the project appearing in the press.

Dr Benway, are you sure about your “ostensibly”? This would mean that producers have either expressed or implied that this is their reason for keeping ID critics out, but that you suspect there’s some other reason that they’re keeping hidden. Maybe I’ve missed it, but I haven’t actually heard them give any reason. And what hidden motive would they have?

I think the creationists were afraid PZ Myers would act like a creationist and throw about a huge persecution complex about not being allowed to see such a “fair and balanced” mockumentary.

I rather suspect they were hoping he would act like a creationist and throw about a huge persecution complex.

I’m fed up of cringing every time I read the word Christian. I am one (and also a grad student in paleontology in one of the world’s best universities) and I’m sane.
I propose that the kind of people that are increasingly being referred to by the term Christian henceforth be referred to by the term deluded lunatics. How’s that?

I, for one, glad to see it. We’re tired of keeping these fanatics in check all by our lonesome. Cause that sure is the way it feels, sometimes.

I think the biggest problem I have wrapping my head around with regards to Christian scientists who profess to only look at evidence, use logic, and rely on their deductive skills, is why they don’t apply these things to the Bible as well? Why do they treat this two-thousand year old a-historical text as if it were part fable and part peer-reviewed journal? Penn Gillette is right in calling religion a superstition, and while I do agree that it’s somewhat mean to say so, the truth is the truth. I have a much harder time believing that science and religion can co-exist – one is based entirely on evidence, the other on faith (in lieu of contrary evidence, or the absence of evidence). How can someone split their thinking so fundamentally?! If you simply believe in the existence of God in a very abstract way (God is nature, the universe, beauty, etc.) then that is hardly the qualification for being a Christian; some would even argue that is a form of atheism. If you believe Jesus set a moral example for humanity, then why don’t you stick with the secular, moral-based aspects of his story? As a scientist, how can you justify working in a profession based on reason, evidence, and experience, while maintaining a wall of faith around an impossible book. If I wanted to worship the Dungeons and Dragons player’s manual as a religious text, it would have just as much credibility as the Bible.

When it comes down to it, I have to ask the question – why, if you purport to be a reason-based, evidence-based, science-based person, do you need religion? If there’s anything one should have faith in, and have hope for, it’s the Human species.

Dr Benway, are you sure about your “ostensibly”? This would mean that producers have either expressed or implied that this is their reason for keeping ID critics out…
Maybe you just mean “apparently”, or possibly even “obviously”.
Posted by: noncarborundum | March 21, 2008 4:17 PM

It’s likely to be lost at this late date in the discussion, but I’d like to toss in another consideration about how and why it is that Christians (at least) are so prone to being seen as immoral and/or idiots.
It comes down to the core belief in forgiveness. Christianity at its root is all and only about ‘getting right with god’. No Christian cares, or needs to care, about getting right with those transgressed against — no human forgiveness matters, whether granted or withheld. Correspondingly, the only forgiveness that does matter is god’s. Got that and those against whom the Christian has transgressed can go intercourse themselves. It’s all right with god and that’s plenty good enough. “God has forgiven me, what’s wrong with you that you won’t?” kind of thing.
That sort of ineptitude of moral reasoning leads inevitably to the kinds of behavior seen in Falwell, Robertson, Dembski, FTK, et al.
Christianity inherently gives them license to do as they please as long as they can convince themselves, and perhaps some coterie of others, that God has, or will, forgive them.

even Christians who are not creationists themselves are often exposed to creationism as “some people who aren’t hurting anyone, just believe very devoutly, are being hounded by evil scientists for their beliefs.” They don’t see the lies and hypocrisy, the damage to the sciences and society, which we see practically every day.

Exactly. Within Christian ideology, personal morality is equated with ideological commitment. It’s inherent to the system. So Christian (Muslims, etc) must be essentially good people, or they must not be “true” Xs. That is a recipe for disaster – even personally good, honest, sincere and fairly rational religious people are sucked into it.

For Christianity and Islam to not fail in this basic way of distinguishing political loyalty and personal morality, they would have to abandon their essential natures as creedal religions, and revert to either explicitly tribal, magical or gnostic religions.

It’s good to have Christian allies, but they can’t pretend they don’t have this problem.

Downloading it would be stupid for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that it might actually be an actual copy of the stupefyingly dishonest movie. Or, it could just be a Trojan horse filled with malware–though I’m not sure how that is fundamentally different from the movie itself.

Big difference between mis-usage and a typo, don’t ya think, Dee? Or are you really that pedantic?

I’m not afraid of being accused of pedantry, Salt. mis is what is called a prefix. Would you write mis-taken, mis-anthropic, or mis-leading? No, you wouldn’t, unless you wanted to look foolish. It’s misusage. Look it up.

1 : intended for display : open to view
2 : being such in appearance : plausible rather than demonstrably true or real

I believe that’s what noncarborundum was referring to. As shown somewhat in your definition and in mine, “ostensibly” usually carries an implication that there may be a deeper, underlying reason other than the ostensible reason. I doubt that “preventing criticism” was the rationale that the Expelled crowd “intended for display,” rather than the actual rationale.

As a person involved with making documentary films, I have always joined the Producers of our films to invite people who helped make the film, especially those interviewed, to the film’s premiere showing. Is it disingenuous, flakey, corrupt, nasty, and downright immoral to throw out the interviewees in the film because you have distorted their interview through editing, and you don’t want your normal audience to find out about it? How loudly can we say yes?

I’d like to be able to laugh at the irony of Richard Dawkins making it through the gate while PZ got ‘expelled’ but I find it so disgusting that the producers would do this and that the audience laps it up, I feel anger instead.

I plan to make a lot of noise at any showing this film receives in my area.

You know, I don’t begrudge you guys your fun – it was pretty darned amusing. However, I really don’t think you’re taking these guys as seriously as you ought to. I keep getting the feeling that I’m watching a bunch of Bavarian Jews dancing around mocking the fledgeling NSDAP guys being hauled off after the Beer Hall fiasco.
Lookit – these folks have that very dangerous blend of fear, self-righteousness and martyr complex/persecution mania. They’re completely impervious to irony. They thrive on being jeered at. It reinforces their belief that they are both right and just like Jesus. It’s amusing that one of them threw a Mein Kampf allusion at Kristine – these are the guys who make up the most fanatic Nazis; no “good Germans” in this crowd, it’s all fervent Hitler Jugend and their parents. They’re laughable until you wake up one day and they’re running the show. I see lots of references to “victories” here; yeah – like the ‘victories’ that the French and then the Americans kept winning in IndoChina. How do you win when your opponents measure victory and defeat by completely different criteria? Keep ridiculing them by all means, but don’t forget that unless most of the country joins your laughter, you’re having essentially no effect no matter how much you’re enjoying the smug feeling of intellectual superiority.

A recently decided case that might be of interest to PZ, whose interview was gained under false pretenses:

In this case, shame and ridicule will be much more effective. Commencing legal action will only give them the kind of publicity they want. Meanwhile, PZ has handled the situation perfectly, by letting them show **themselves** for the incompetent, dishonest, fascist theotards that they really really are. Much, much more effective.

For a bunch of science fetishists, you guys are proving to be some of the sloppiest around. English usage aside, accuracy is not your strong suit. But I guess that is to be expected, given your predilection for the inaccuracies of your champions , a/k/a Dawkins, Hitchens, and especially Harris.

Now, now, we shouldn’t be posting links to torrent sites here on Pharyngula. PZ’s gone to great pains to make sure that there’s nothing illegal or shady that they can tar him with, and having a link to illegal copies would be something they could point at. Anyone smart enough to know how full of tripe Expelled is will be smart enough to find copies for themselves.

I know it’s not illegal to post the links, and I would much prefer for everyone to see it without paying. It just seems like handing them ammunition so they can whine about how PZ’s site is encouraging non-paying downloads by linking to them.

Of course, once again that places the onus on them to explain why they want to restrict access to such an Important Message that Everyone Should Know About, especially if they’re handing out free CDs with parts of the movie on it, and that could be fun to watch them talk in circles around themselves. Hm. Carry on, then.

Well, as one more Theist who is on PZ’s team
evolution and science/wise, I’d like to point people
to one fun Christian blog that takes on
the Pre-Not Left Behind:Slacktivist,
especially Left Behind Fridays.

Fred’s blog doesn’t get into Creationism, but the Left-Behind folks have their own brand of fake-Christianity, and he takes them apart pretty thoroughly.

Of course, the instant I actually go *look* at Slacktivist, to follow up my recommendation, there’s a
passage about Creationism in Fred’s latest post.
Coincidence? I think not. Well, yeah, it is.
But anyway here it is. The context is fundamentalist
fears about joining ecumenically with any other
Christians, esp. more liberal ones, even for charity work.

“The fundies’ white-knuckled anxiety — their barely repressed doubts and their fear that their faith may be a house of cards that would crumble if exposed to the wider world — seems to be spreading to other branches of the evangelical movement. That’s the predictable result of adding weird mythologies to one’s faith. The fundies convinced themselves that if the world is any older than 10,000 years then Jesus doesn’t love them. Thus they have to avoid all exposure to science.”

JohnR 226#, You make a very good point, and it’s not lost on us. I think most of the regular commenters here do not underestimate how dangerous is the fanaticism and paranoia that fuels mainstream religion in this country. We see science being trampled on, and the most idiotic, dishonest things being broadcast in the name of God. Ignorance and superstition is rampant, and it only seems to be getting worse. Personally, when I see a video of huge churches full of people swaying back and forth with their arms raised high for Jesus, it makes me a little sick to my stomach. It’s like a ticking time bomb.

PZ’s incident at the theater was definitely a win for rational, critical thinking, but I doubt that most of us are under the delusion that this “victory” is going to suddenly make things a lot easier for science, and/or atheism.

Rudy Fred’s blog doesn’t get into Creationism, but the Left-Behind folks have their own brand of fake-Christianity, and he takes them apart pretty thoroughly.

Yeah, and they call you a fake Christian. That was exactly what I was pointing out up-thread – that your ideology demands that they be “fake” Christians, and that’s a major problem particularly with Christianity and Islam (with the Jews trying to add faith to their concoction as a new-fangled revamp).

The fundamentalists are just as natural an implication of biblical Christianity as you reasonable liberal Christian types. Argue them wrong, argue them misguided – but the moment you brand them fake, you might as well give up – both propagandistically and ideologically.

You can accept the creed in all it’s colors and still be either misguided or just plain evil. Until you can cope with the empirical fact that faith does not convert any one into a decent, reasonable person, and that being indecent does not disqualify one from having faith in the traditional Christian sense, y’all will continue to give birth to monsters, with the best of intentions.

Frog,
I have no intention of starting a flame war, but I have to say that your descriptions of how Christians like me deal with the conflict of faith and morality doesn’t actually fit how christians choose to live their faith. The points you raise are valid ones (the first religious argument I can remember having was with my sunday school teacher about whether moral atheists go to heaven: she thought no; I thought, and still think, yes). But you really ought to go and speak to liberal Christians to see how they deal with these problems, rather than simply erecting a complex system without reference to what goes on.
For example, in pre reformation catholicism, the sale of indulgences and the widespread practice on confession are predicated on the fact that you can have faith and commit immoral acts.
I agree with the comment above that the thing that shocks me most about fundamental creationists is that their need to believe against all evidence to the contrary in a literal interpretation of the bible suggests that their faith itself is actually rather shaky.

but I have to say that your descriptions of how Christians like me deal with the conflict of faith and morality doesn’t actually fit how christians choose to live their faith.

Hm… RealWorldOverated, I may be misunderstanding which aspect of Frog’s post you’re referring to, and if so, my apologies. However, I think that Frog’s post in 246 is spot on. How often have we heard fundies say that liberal Christians are “not real Christians,” and how often have we heard liberal Christians say the same thing back? Both sides follow the parts of the Bible that they like, and ignore the parts that they don’t like. It’s just that arguably the liberal Christians like the parts of the Bible which align most closely with current secular ethics. That may make them more likely to agree with atheists and agnostics on more issues, but I don’t know that you can argue that it makes them any more “real” as Christians.

This ain’t no flame war. You are correct that Catholicism tempers faith with “fruits”, but that is only true for Catholic and Orthodox churches. In almost every reformation church, the belief is that salvation is by faith – and in most it is by “faith alone”. The Episcopals are an exception, insofar as they are not really a reformation church, but a Catholic schism.

But in almost every Christian church, from the Syrian Orthodox to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, faith is pre-eminent. This is not just true for Christians, but for Muslims as well – acceptance of the creed is salvational in and of itself. It’s the bedrock of the ideology.

This is no complex system, but a very simple truth. A Christian becomes a Christian, and achieves a large part of their salvation (and often all of it), by accepting some variation of the Nicene Creed, just as a Muslim becomes a Muslim with their little statement of faith. They are evolutions of the Jewish statement of faith – the Sh’ma. But in traditional Judaism, the statement of faith wasn’t salvational in the same sense, more a statement of fact than an effective declaration.

Of course, Christians in the RealWorld have a complex relationship to this; an educated Christian is going to handle these things with subtlety. But at the end of the day, most of Christianity (if you’re not a sect of one), claims a salvational privileged truth predicated on the acceptance of a statement of faith. Yes, the Catholics grandfather in Jews (and Muslims grandfather in Christians and Jews), but that changes little about the main thrust of the ideology.

Christians who don’t accept the power of faith, and of a particulary statement of faith as salvational, are more accurately described as “fake” Christians by the fundamentalists than visa-versa; since the fourth century that has clearly been the historical position of Christians and Christianity, rather than an eccentric liberalism along the lines of the UU. Of course, anyone can claim to be more true to the “authentic” Christian message, but without a time machine to 33 AD, ascertaining that authenticity is impossible. My intuition is that all Christians are wrong about that “authentic” message, and would be deeply shocked to find what was authentically said by anti-Roman Jewish dissidents of the first century.

It is amusing to me. I see the fluctuations of time line given for new earth creationism and I am reminded of the Indian oceanographic research in the Gulf of Cambay which appears to have unearthed a pre-Harappan city, which is still under study. In India, the Hindu heirarchy has declared that this is the “City of Krishna.” My feeling is that this was probably the source city for the Atlantis myth that Egypt gave the Greeks. However, writer Graham Hancock has cabbaged onto this like Jack London in the Klondike, to the detriment of the study. Hancock sensationalized this and the Indians weren’t ready to talk about this discovery just yet.

BUT, I notice that the ID people are moving the timelines, just in case this city in the sea is real, which I suspect it is. I have to admit a fondness for Harappan and pre-Harrapan studies because the Judeo-Christian timeline gets stretched to the breaking point…this in turns shows the conceit within the religions. [this is not my sole reason for liking these studies, but simply one of the good points about this interest that I have.]

For, if they are wrong about timeline in terms of the origins of civilization what else is religion wrong about?

ID is a new way of pushing that same old idea. Sadly, the good moral lessons that inspire us when we are young about “everything was darker than a thousand midnights down in the cypress swamp, and he said, ‘Let there be light.'” But we learn that god’s plan is way hell and gone more complicated than inspirational thinking. It’s a systematic and incredible march of progress and experimentation on a huge scale.

I do not know, and know that I do not know, if there is a plan behind all of this…I would like to think there is. However, for lack of a better word I simply call it great.

I think the problem for the creationist crowd is more sexual than any of us cares to admit. We appear to be directly related to H. Erectus, and indeed from the neck down we are almost identical. H. Erectus looks to have been possibly a better walker in terms of stamina than we are. There is little doubt that in spite of what must have been incredible childhood mortality figures and all-too-real dangers from the massive and terrifying predators of that age like Smilodon, the giant Hyena, and the abundance of leopards and lions, H. Erectus was never too busy or hungry to pass up an opportunity to do some schtupping. As H. Neanderthal Sapiens maybe numbered no more than 10,000 at their height, there were likely many times more of H. Erectus due to his greater range of migration and his likely far longer survival in South Asia, especially India and Indonesia.

I don’t think the religionists can handle this. A bright, but not so bright proto-human capable of great humanity and horrifying savagry at the same time; naked, predatory hunter and omnivorous too, likely opportunistically cannibalistic, likely always ready for sex and damn opportunistic about it and free from much of any taboos except those established within his band. We today seems so staid compared to those times.

Of course, once again that places the onus on them to explain why they want to restrict access to such an Important Message that Everyone Should Know About, especially if they’re handing out free CDs with parts of the movie on it, and that could be fun to watch them talk in circles around themselves. Hm. Carry on, then.

yup. it’s one of the few instances where i can point to file sharing as a complete win-win scenario.

normally, I most certainly would not approve of torrenting a new release movie (the argument arises after release onto dvd). but in this case, I really can’t see much of a downside.

the problem is, despite the localized hype, there really isn’t ANY interest in this movie within the torrent community as yet.

I have zero problem with Christianity Today, but their ‘movie critic’ Jeff Overstreet is deeply unethical. He reminds me of Barbara Hagerty. You don’t blame the Jack Black in Bob Roberts caricature who sent the email, you blame the person who tries to weasel, insinuate, and in places lie the story into circulation.

To be fair, and I hate to be fair, the piece in Christianity Today is even-handed by the standards of the type of media they represent. They have the courage to link to Pharyngula, and the restraint to not shout about the “gate-crasher” accusation. Have we found the “True Christians”?

I put some questions about NT Wright’s speech, quoting what Wright said, and quoting the Bible. There was nothing whatever discourteous about what I said. I simply quoted Wright, and pointed out where he was distorting everything.

Unable to answer these questions, the organisers simply deleted them.

That is how confident Christians are of the arguments put forward by their best scholars.

Christians have to delete and censor people who point out the apologetic tricks that their best scholars resort to.

The organisers say ‘The aim of the lecture series is to encourage constructive dialogue and discussion.’

Here is what the organisers said to me ‘Censorship (that is, ensuring the propriety and relevance of
contributions to debates) is of the essence of academic research – without it science cannot function.’

In other words, they are hypocrites who will delete anything that they cannot anwser, while boasting of their whish for ‘constructive dialogue and discussion’.

Please feel free to register at the site and ask why Christians delete all discussion that they can see they are getting hammered in.

Steven Carr #269: Absolutely, yet on sites such as Dawkins’ you are allowed to have your say without fear of deletion of any kind. Only “preaching” is not allowed, and even then you get three warnings followed by a TEMPORARY ban. Your comments stand regardless.

I’ve just been reading a fascinating thread there started by someone called “elfprincess” that went on for over 50 long pages. Her comments were always welcomed, carefully criticised and methodically debunked, and she was assured that as long as she kept posting her posts would be acknowledged and commented on. Eventually she got a 7 day ban for preaching, but the last post in the thread is a note from a forum moderator that she is still welcome back. The whole 50-page thread is still there, and I take my hat off to all the contributors who carefully and thoroughly dissected her arguments, even if it did get a bit heated at times!

Please do not mistake these zealots for “Christians,” especially here at Easter time. Most Christians belong to denominations that do not require us to check our brains at the church door, and are as embarrassed by the Pat Robertsons of the world as anyone else.

And Ben Stein is absolutely nothing resembling a Christian. Or a good Jew, for that matter.

If you want examples of the denigration and dehumanization of Christians, calling for public humiliation, etc. — just read what he’s said and written. He’s help create an environment he doesn’t want to live in.

If Myers has a shred of integrity, he’d get on this blog right now, and say “Hey, I got a taste of the public humiliation that I have advocated, and ya’ know what? I didn’t like it — maybe I’ve been overzealous in the past — maybe I could be more fair in the future.”

Maybe the question of ultimate causes is a polemical point in a dogmatic dispute, and something that has little bearing on what happens in actual research. Maybe everybody needs to check their philosophy at the lab door and shut up and dance.

You know, as much as I’d loooooove to hang around and help you equivocate, I can’t.

Just read the last couple months of this blog for the WBC? argumentative approach to Christians, with the lovely “fundies are feces” subtext — and then google “pz myers public firing humiliation teachers,” then come back and tell me about it.

Just wanted to let PZ know I’m man enough to apologize when I’m wrong. I hope he and Dawkins post another video on Youtube doing the same thing when they realize they were dead wrong about our cell animation segment.

Frog (at 246): I didn’t mean to say that the Left Behind
types are fake Christians; I meant to say that their fairy
story about the Rapture, and so on, is fake Christianity.
It was all made up about 100 years ago.

The mythology about how old the earth is, and so on,
goes much farther back in Christian Europe, of course, but
it’s not as though it was ever a part of any Christian
creed. Fundamentalists pushing it as “Christianity” are
pushing fake Christianity, in the same way. If someone
said that you had to believe the Flying
Spaghetti monsteris a Demon from Hell, to be a Christian,
that would be fake Christianity, i.e. not the real thing.

All these people may or may not be Christians. I have no
way to tell. You are right that many of them would have no
doubts about me, though.

If Myers has a shred of integrity, he’d get on this blog right now, and say “Hey, I got a taste of the public humiliation that I have advocated, and ya’ know what? I didn’t like it — maybe I’ve been overzealous in the past — maybe I could be more fair in the future.”

You don’t know him.

The rest of us have no reason to believe that he has been anything less than truthful in saying that he got a good laugh out of this whole incident. I suppose if it makes you feel better to think that he’s crying over the sand kicked in his face, then you can go to bed and fantasize, just leave us out of it.

From Sven: “No, you don’t. The producers of expelled owe YOU an apology for making you look bad by association.”

Agreed. As a liberal Christian, I found the behavior of the producer reprehensible and stupid.

I also find the lumping of all Christians together in some of these posts a bit disconcerting. I like being *asked* about my views (many of which are very different from the Fundies and Conservatives, sometimes 180-degrees so) rather than *assumed*. I was once a part of the “evangelical” scene, but there was so much that went against what I had been taught about God and Christ and everything else that I got out. However, I still struggle with some issues (evangelicalism really WAS indoctrination, and I feel like I must sometimes go through cult recovery in order to change my way of thinking), and that is something I just must grow through, think through, and dialogue through. It doesn’t matter to me what you believe; and I hope people have enough respect to not generalize one particular (close to cultic, Bible-worshipping, Satan-crediting) end of Christianity over everyone who claims Christ as Lord. I don’t bug my atheist or agnostic or even Wiccan pals about their beliefs. I read the Dalai Lama. I have questions about evolution and believe that evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive. I am also in a science major in college. Science doesn’t disprove God to me. You might call me “indoctrinated,” even now as I learn to live in grace and love and harmony, but my personal experience is beyond indoctrination.

I’m glad you tried to get in to see the film, and would have loved to have seen your review of it. I’ve seen other “evangelical” type films and they were so biased and extreme they made my eyes pop out and my brain hurt. I’ve also come out of atheistic films angry that they condemn everyone and everything that accepts the existence of God. In both instances, I came away wondering, “where’s the love? Both sides talk about loving others, but is condemnation love? Is anger and finger-pointing and name-calling love?”

I like reading other viewpoints. As it says on a bumper sticker I’ve seen, I am “Christian, but not Closed-Minded.”

I noticed that your jibe that “Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty.” linked to a Christianity Today article. So I followed that and read the article only to acquire a sense of deja-vu when I read a paragraph quoted from your blog; the exact paragraph containing the link I followed to their article. So, I checked the dates. You wrote your piece on March 21, 2008 3:09 AM, Christianity Today has their piece dated March 20, 2008 11:42PM. Now, I believe these dates, because the fact that you link to them implies you wrote the blog entry after they wrote their article. But then how does their article contain a quote from your blog? I can only notice that your jibe is consistent with the distinct possibility that they edited their article after original publication. Which unfortunately means that I didn’t read the article you intended for me to read when I clicked the link.

I noticed that your jibe that “Christians have a growing reputation for their appreciation of dishonesty.” linked to a Christianity Today article. So I followed that and read the article only to acquire a sense of deja-vu when I read a paragraph quoted from your blog; the exact paragraph containing the link I followed to their article. So, I checked the dates. You wrote your piece on March 21, 2008 3:09 AM, Christianity Today has their piece dated March 20, 2008 11:42PM.

Even more evidence of Christian dishonesty. Or it could be that PZ’s software is set up to change the date on his post when he updates it, and CT’s does not.

PZ:
I apologize if this is too obvious, or I missed someone make mention elsewhere:

Would it be feasible, when asked to do these interviews, to set up your own video camera? This obviously wouldn’t be needed when interviewing for entities you know and trust, but it would be nice to have an independent record in case of malicious editing.

I’ve gathered that production companies tend to have some pretty gnarly legal language in their release forms, but perhaps a slight change in the wording should be the price for securing a professional opinion.

I also find the lumping of all Christians together in some of these posts a bit disconcerting. I like being *asked* about my views (many of which are very different from the Fundies and Conservatives, sometimes 180-degrees so) rather than *assumed*

Hi Annie. I understand your point here. It is true that some people can over-generalize, and I don’t personally find it to be helpful. I guess that it is a good idea to get in to the habit of always qualifying what you say about whole classes of people with “some” or “many”, or other such examples, if only for the sake of politeness.

I also think that it is a good idea to remember that a person isn’t talking about you, specifically, even if it may seem that way. What I mean by this is that, if you know that it doesn’t apply to you, while it is still perfectly reasonable to complain about over-generalization, you don’t necessarily have to worry about it. It is more important that you know and respect yourself, in my opinion. We (as in the people on this site) all know that there are many, many rational, decent, honest Christians, and many that are as opposed to some of the antics of their co-religionists, as we are.

In our defense, it doesn’t always seem that way, which is probably a result of the way that our cultures work (I am not American). There probably isn’t anywhere near enough publicity given to the Christians that have far more in common with non-believers, than points where we differ.

I don’t bug my atheist or agnostic or even Wiccan pals about their beliefs. I read the Dalai Lama. I have questions about evolution and believe that evolution and creation are not mutually exclusive. I am also in a science major in college. Science doesn’t disprove God to me. You might call me “indoctrinated,” even now as I learn to live in grace and love and harmony, but my personal experience is beyond indoctrination.

I don’t think that you are indoctrinated, but I am sure that you would agree with many of the points that atheists make concerning the fact that most religious believers do follow the religion of their parents, and even more, the prominent religion in their country? For instance, you would be far more likely to be a Muslim if you had been born in certain parts of the middle-east.

I guess that the question would then be whether your personal experience may have been seen in a different light – through a different prism, as it were – if you were a Muslim? As a science major I am sure that you will know that personal experience, while powerful for many people, isn’t always a reliable indicator of reality? Indeed, there is much evidence that shows that personal experience is quite often reliably unreliable, and can distort reality a great deal.

I am not attempting to argue with you here. I respect your beliefs. I just thought that I would throw that out there and give you something to ponder. If more of us realized and accepted that we are a product of our environments, I am sure that the world would be a better place.

If I may be so bold as to speak for others, it is always a pleasure to hear from Christians such as yourself. I know that it helps me to remain humble, anyway. Though we may have minor disagreements, you really aren’t the type of Christian that we find problematic. I would even go as far as saying that there probably wouldn’t be an atheist/theist debate if all religious believers were as reasonable as you seem to be. It is such a shame that people such as yourself are too often caught in the crossfire. Thanks for your post.

If they actually are able to apologise to Mr Jesus, or Mr Muhammad, or any of the other such long-dead noteworthies their actions routinely insult, in person, I’d have to seriously re-consider my non-belief.

For one thing, it’d the first bit of evidence ever presented that there is anything more to religion that wishful projection.

If they actually are able to apologise to Mr Jesus, or Mr Muhammad, or any of the other such long-dead noteworthies their actions routinely insult, in person, I’d have to seriously re-consider my non-belief.

Who said anything about doing it in person? Christians are supposedly called to glorify God and Jesus. Dragging his name through the mud, associating it with lies, deception, delusion, pseudoscience, bigotry, did I mention LIES, is not my idea of glorifying.

It is way too early for torrent copies. Proceed with caution, as there is a high probability they are fake.

Or worse, it could be real. Ewww….

They’ve all been flagged as fake. One commenter says it’s actually Ocean’s 13.

Creationist doesn’t necessarily imply Baptist.

The converse is also true: Baptist doesn’t necessarily imply Creationist. I’m a Baptist Preacher’s Kid?, and I don’t recall evolution ever being a religious issue while I was growing up. It was always an accepted part of science.

If anything, we figured that a God who could set up the universe to “crank up” instead of running down was a whole lot cooler and more subtle and mysterious than one who sat around for a week making a whole bunch of things from scratch, BAM BAM BAM like some kind of giant Emeril in the sky, and was so worn out at the end of it all that he had to take a Mental Health Day.

But then maybe I’m a weird sort of Baptist in this day and age. Separation of church and state is one of the original Baptist principles, along with “soul liberty” – the freedom to nurture and practice one’s own faith (or non-faith) without hindrance from established authority or dogma – and “soul competence,” the recognition of each person’s ability to do so. Other founding priciples include congregational autonomy and the notion of the “priesthood of all believers” – everyone has a direct relationship with God rather than having to go through clergy, saints, etc.

Sad to say, the largest Baptist group – the Southern Baptist Convention – has thrown all that out the window for the most part. Even my own denomination, the historically progressive-to-liberal American Baptist Churches USA, has been racked with infighting, especially over GLBT issues, to the point where several regional associations have kicked out some member churches for being gay-friendly.

teh st00pid. it burns. & not just teh athiests. iz burn evry1 els 2.

(OTOH, a group of SBC churches has bolted and set up a new association, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, which sticks more closely to those Baptist principles. There’s also the Alliance of Baptists, an association of progressive/liberal ABC and SBC churches. I’ve heard that the SBC has at least threatened to kick out member churches that join the AofB. That’s Baptists for ya. We’re good at 3 things: holding potluck dinners, taking up offerings, and splitting up.)

“Expelled” is destined to be the “Reefer Madness” of the next generation

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